The Cumbrian Traverse takes a high level route through the heart of the Lake District. It starts at Broughton Mills in Dunnerdale and ends in Keswick. We’ll climb 21 fells (summits), 50km and 3,500 meters of ascent. A tough day out, but one to remember!
Fells (summits) include: Great Stickle, Stickle Pike, Caw, White Maiden, Brown Pike, Dow Crag, The Old Man of Coniston, Swirl How, Great Carrs, Cold Pike, Crinkle Crags, Bowfell, Esk Pike, Great End, Great Gable, Green Gable, Brandreth, Grey Knotts, High Spy, Maiden Moor and Cat Bells.
For this event, we’ll be teaming up with Ian Stewart Coaching. Ian is based in the Lake District and has detailed knowledge of this route. Please check out his website for further information.
We have been guiding the Welsh 3000 challenge regularly for over 20 years, with a range of client groups from large charity events over three days, through to groups of fit runners, aiming to complete all peaks within 12 hours. We feel that the Cumbrian Traverse will offer a similar experience, but crossing the Lake District National Park instead.
To prepare well for this challenge, we recommend that you have completed the Welsh 3000s over 2 days, or one of our 50km events as a minimum. We’ll have two pace options. “Run” will be at a slow run, but walking all the hills and technical sections, with the aim to complete in roughly 14-16hrs. “Walk” won’t involve any running, but we’ll aim to complete in 16-18hrs. We might split these groups further on the day depending on numbers and progress made. Please contact us for further information.
For our 2026 Cumbrian Traverse Challenge, we are offering this to runners and faster walkers. We plan to have both running and walking options available in 2027.
Safety is our number one consideration, so we work on a very low staff to participant ratio. We only use qualified Mountain Leaders and Mountaineering Instructors for this event. All have extensive experience in Snowdonia, The Lake District and Scotland and know the route well. Our run leaders are also experienced Ultramarathon runners.
We reserve the right to modify the route if weather conditions aren’t deemed suitable for a full traverse.
• Food and drink at our road crossing checkpoints.
• A support vehicle following the event, should you need to leave the challenge before the end.
If our dates don’t suit you or maybe you’d like to try it over more days, please get in touch. We can also offer this as a charity fundraising event.
Places are limited for this event, due to the nature of the terrain, level of supervision required and transport options to get to the start.
For further information, if you have any questions, or if booking for more than 6 people, please contact info@climbsouthwest.com.
Got a question about an event? Need to know if you’re ready for one of our longer races? Just ask.
